Once blocked, Twitter becomes a classroom tool

Twitter and other social media are becoming commonplace in schools across the nation

Taxation, representation and slavery were up for debate recently at Wauwatosa West High School, where juniors engaged in a multi-day, in-class simulation of the first Constitutional Convention in 1787.

With a modern twist.

“I hope that today’s debate ends with a decision on how representatives are chosen,” Andrew Gleason typed on Twitter.

“More than one executive is not common sense. Only one!” contributed Deon Ellis.

“I have decided to have Ben Franklin run as my VP in 2016,” Garrick Gesell punched in.

Teenagers using social media is nothing new. But in-class use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube traditionally have been discouraged in most K-12 schools, seen as a distraction from real learning at best and a red-flag privacy concern at worst.